Jenson's Funny Farm: The holidays

November was a busy, exciting time in addition to dealing with Janet's passing. The temple was finally being reopened, and we were able to help with the open house. Tom helped with parking, and I was an attendant inside the temple. We were so excited to get our temple back!

We watched the youth cultural event (November 17th) at the South Stake Center. Here are a few photos from the event.

Hannah was so excited. She got to shake hands with the prophet!

Here is Boise Central Stake's youth doing their thing...

James sang in the choir...he is the one with the bushy hair in the lower left corner.

November 18th was the dedication of the temple. Tom, Tim and James helped with parking. Hannah was asked to help put shoe covers on people. We all had the privilege of attending the dedication within the walls of the temple.

After the dedication we raced downtown to the CenturyLink arena for the Hymns of Thanksgiving.

Then we went to Utah...

We took Laney on a tour of the conference center.

And saw the lights the day after Thanksgiving.

The funeral was very nice. We enjoyed paying tribute to Tom's mom and spending time with the siblings.

Then we started on Christmas traditions. I attempted fudge, but it turned out weird. Tasted good, though. I tried making cookies, but decided that candy is my thing so I saved the treats by making truffles.

On to gingerbread houses. The day we were going to make them Hannah caught Zena with one of the backs, and we discovered that she had taken care of two house backs. Making the frosting was frustrating when my Bosch attachments proved too wimpy. Thank goodness I had a small hand mixer. As we sat down to make the houses we realized that Zena had disappeared ALL the sides to the houses. Everyone donated the good parts so I could make a good house to share with another family. Everyone else used graham crackers to fill in the gaps. This is James' house. We are calling this year the "Mayan apocalypse" or "hurricane Zena"

Christmas morning we were finally up soon after 9 am. As we ate breakfast we watched "Joy to the World" which was produced by the church.

Then we opened gifts, watched movies and...

Went sand sledding.

What else do you do when there's no snow!

Here we are at New Year's eve. Hannah is at a dance. James is at a party. Tim and his girlfriend took a nap and then joined us to see the new year in. Soon John and Laney will be here to play. It will be a late night, but it will be nice to be together.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Before we left town for Thanksgiving Tom was helping Tim find a good bike on Craig's list. They found one valued at $3000 on sale for $300. It was an older bike, but they decided it was a good purchase. While there Tom noticed the lady had a cello in the garage. He asked if she played and she said she'd taken some lessons but preferred the bass. So Tom asked if she wanted to sell it. So another $300 bought Hannah a cello.

The cello is Hannah's share of any inheritance we get from the estate. We don't know how much money the cello is worth, but there are some signs that it is a good cello.

1. The neck is unfinished. The lady at Dunkley's told Tom that the finish just comes off on the cellist's clothing so the good cellos don't have finish on the neck.
2. The back is made of one single piece of wood.
3. It sounds fantastic!
We decided to give it to Hannah after the trip to Utah.